In Celebration Of The Life Of
Elizabeth Seward Hulburd-Hine-Alderson
(Nicknames: Betty, Hully)
A Biography By Son Edward K. Hine, Jr. ("Ted")
Second Edition - February 2006

Introduction:

The information I present in this biography regarding my mother has come from several sources.  First and foremost are my direct memories of her starting in my childhood and till her death.  A major source of information about her early life has come from surviving letters, documents, and photos which I never knew existed but which I recently discovered among the boxes of effects saved after her death.  Old Hine family photos, stored and un-seen for decades, have been incredibly productive at jogging my memory and reminding me of events of long ago.  Finally, some oral history by and about mother and some of her ancestors has been preserved on audio and video tape.   In 1986 son Greg interviewed mother about her past and recorded it on audio tape.  In 1995 I did the same and in 1993 son Henry recorded a family history interview with her on video tape.  This biography contains a number of mother's surviving letters, documents and photos, along with some priceless 8mm home movie footage from the 1950's and 1960's.  Finally, all three family history interviews which were captured on audio and video tape are included.

1956 Hine Family Portrait. Left to right: Scamp (Henry), Greg, Ted, Betty, and Kirt.

I've organized this biography into 5 major sections which are accessed by clicking the navigation buttons located at the extreme top and bottom of each section.  This is the "Introduction" section.  The next three sections contain information on the major parts of Betty's life:  "Early Years (1917-1941)" starts at her birth and continues till just before her first marriage.  "Mid Life (1941-1968)"  covers her first marriage, her child raising years, and her divorce.  "Later Years (1968-1992)" covers her second marriage and retirement years.  Finally, the "General and Other" section includes information which didn't seem to fit elsewhere and/or spanned multiple periods of her life.  Each major section contains clickable sub-sections.  To return to a major section from a sub-section, click the "back" button in your browser.  Note that clicking on most pictures throughout this biography will display a larger version of it and, in some cases, clicking again will produce an even larger version (sometimes requiring the additional step of clicking again on the browsers picture enlargement button).  To export photos from this biography for your use elsewhere, first display the photo in the size you wish to export (see the previous sentence) then (on a Windows computer) right click with your mouse on the photo and select "Save Picture As....".  This will allow you to save the picture to a specified location on your hard drive.

A Brief Summary of Betty's Life:

Betty (right) and traveling companion boarding the ocean liner Normandie for Europe in July of 1936.

Elizabeth Seward Hulburd was born on August 29, 1917 in St. Louis, Missouri where she grew up in a world of high social status and privilege.  To her St. Louis school mates she was known as Hully, short for Hulburd.  In later years she was simply known as Betty to her friends though her sister Harriet ("Dede") always called her "Susan" for reasons I have never known.  After high school graduation from St. Louis' exclusive Mary Institute in 1935 she attended Finch College in New York City for a year before traveling to Europe and "coming-out" to St. Louis society as a Debutante in 1936.

In 1939 Betty moved to New York City and in 1942 married Kirt Hine, a Yale educated engineer.  She spent the next 21 years as a housewife, homemaker, and mother of 3 sons in North Caldwell, NJ.  In 1963, after becoming divorced from her husband of 20 years in 1962, she moved back to her childhood home of St. Louis, Missouri.  Five years later she met and married John Alderson and moved to his home in Concord, California.  After a brief retirement period living in Vacaville, California, Betty and John permanently retired to a small farm near the rural Missouri River town of Hermann, MO in 1973.

In 1986 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, under went surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy and for the next 10 years successfully fought the disease till she finally passed away from its complications on September 9, 1996.  She was cremated and her remains are buried in the Hulburd-Knowles family plot in the Oakland Cemetery, Moberly, Missouri with and near 4 generations of her ancestors.

While I can say with confidence that my mother generally had a good, happy, and productive life, it is apparent, when looking at her life span in it's entirety, that she faced 3 very traumatic experiences, each of which she successfully navigated and dealt with, and each of which had major consequences on her life and it's direction.  Betty was never a complainer and, to the best of my knowledge, never outwardly dwelled on these major events.  The first, the conviction and imprisonment of her father for embezzlement in 1939, caused her to move to the east coast and leave behind her friends and life of privilege in St. Louis.  Her divorce from her first husband in 1962 caused her next major direction change including the move back to St. Louis which led to her second marriage.  Finally, fighting cancer starting in 1986 took it's toll.  Through all these events mother always managed to maintain a positive attitude.

For details, follow the links below to the various periods of her life.